


Two by Two

by just_a_blip



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Gen, almost everything is platonic, but brooke and chloe are dating, i didn't want to tag this fic as pinkberry bc it's not a focus of the story, this is mostly just...kids talk about their feelings: the fanfic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-15 19:51:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16939617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/just_a_blip/pseuds/just_a_blip
Summary: Brooke said it isn’t a big deal and it isn’t.But it kind of is.It was just the Squip Squad, and everyone refused to call this a party because if this was a party, it would be a big deal. But it’s not. So it won’t be.Except that it is. But it might not be. Maybe it’s both.-Brooke hosts a party and there are wayyyyy to many unresolved feelings and insecurities for these kids not to spend some time to talk about them.-Edit: I'm having some serious writer's block with this and I'm not officially abandoning it, but it's not gonna be updated for a while. Sorry.





	1. Jeremy and Rich

**Author's Note:**

> Alright kiddos, here's the plan: I will update this at least once every two weeks, maybe more often bc winter break is coming up and I'm going home.

Brooke said it isn’t a big deal and it _isn’t_.

But it kind of is.

It was just the Squip Squad, as Michael called it, and everyone refused to call this a party because if this _was_ a party, it would be a big deal. But it’s not. So it won’t be.

Except that it is. But it might not be.

Maybe it’s both.

Jeremy’s the last to arrive, still dealing with his punishment of not being able to use his dad’s car and his guilt asking Michael for a ride. It’s not bad, though. The soft sting of the wind on his cheeks is familiar and comforting: a reminder that he is made of flesh and blood and feelings, a person with a body he needs to take care of, a person who should probably get a scarf because now he can’t feel his face.

“This is real,” he says aloud to himself. “I’m fine.”

He counts all the houses with too way many decorations on their front lawn. Most of them are ugly, and Jeremy realizes that even rich people have poor taste sometimes.

A shaking hand (either from anxiety or the cold or both) knocks on the front door to the Lohst house. It’s huge, and Jeremy feels like it’s going to swallow him whole. He flinches a little when the door suddenly swings open.

“Jeremy! What took you so long? It started an hour ago!” Brooke puts on a fake pout.

He gives a shy smile. “Had to walk.”

“Oh.” She says simply and steps aside to let him in. “Take your shoes off. Mom is real weird about people having shoes on in here.”

The Lohst house is warm and Jeremy would take off his jacket if it wouldn’t make people ask questions he didn’t want to answer. The front room is still and quiet but he can hear the rest of his friends laughing down the hallway. The sound bounces off the walls, sounding false and unnatural. Maybe it’s just the blood rushing in his ears that obstruct the sound.

There’s an even distribution of framed pictures from vacations and school portraits on the walls. As he and Brooke walk down the hall, they go back in time. Brooke gets younger and younger, her face becoming rounder, getting braces then losing them again, bangs, no bangs, bangs, no bangs, until at the end of the hall, kindergarten Brooke smiles wide, a couple of her teeth missing. It’s a strange feeling.

“Um, so there’s a bathroom down that hall and drinks in the kitchen. You can go anywhere in the house except the master bedroom and the attic. Oh! And we’re ordering a pizza, but that’s not until later tonight. We have snacks, though.”

She’s beaming, bright and wide. Jeremy gives a convincing smile in return.

“Jeremy’s here!” Brooke calls out.

Everyone greets him at once, their words jumbling together into one indecipherable soundwave that crashes into his senses. Jeremy stands there awkwardly, taking longer than he should to process his surroundings. Christine is braiding Jenna’s hair. Jake is going through all of Brooke’s movies, occasionally nodding with approval. Brooke joins Chloe on the couch, giving her opinion on a series of selfies she just took. Rich is curled up on the loveseat, also giving his opinion on Chloe’s recent selfie set. Michael is playing a game on his phone (probably Jelly Jump) and complaining about how long it’s taking Jake to pick out a movie.

Jeremy sits down on the floor, about a foot away from Michael; he hasn’t earned back his right to be as physically close as they usually are. Michael gives him a look, furrowing his brow a little. He opens his mouth to ask something, but Jake interrupts.

“Space Jam!” He shouts, holding it up triumphantly above his head.

“Ew. Why do you want to watch Space Jam?”

“The more important question is: why does Brooke _own_ Space Jam?”

“It’s a classic!”

They all talk over each other again. Jake, Brooke, and Christine defending the movie while Michael, Chloe, and Jenna tear it to shreds.

“Bunnies shouldn’t have tits!”

“I don’t think it’s that big of a problem.”

“I think you’re just a furry.”

Jeremy watches them bicker about whether or not it’s okay to give a cartoon rabbit breasts and some other points Jeremy can’t quite pick out from the sea of passionate yelling. He draws his knees to his chest, squeezing them tight. It’s a little much, but nothing he can’t handle.

Eventually they settle down enough for them to actually start watching it. Michael pokes fun all throughout, but Jeremy can tell he’s enjoying himself. Christine mouths the words in tandem with the movie and only stops when Jake gives her an amused look that causes her to blush lightly from embarrassment. Chloe stares intently at the TV with morbid curiosity, Jenna is mostly snapchatting Chloe’s reactions and Rich is—

Rich is gone. He must have snuck out at some point when everyone was giving their two cents on bunny titties. Jeremy is about to ask someone, but he thinks better of it. Maybe Rich got overwhelmed and needed a breather. Maybe he just needed to pee. Whatever. It’s none of his business

At some point during the basketball game (Jeremy isn’t sure when, it’s been hard to focus since he got here), everyone goes fucking _wild_. It’s loud and it’s sudden and Jeremy was already creeping on the edge of shutting down; this was a hard shove off the cliff.

 _This is real_ , he says in his mind. _I’m fine._

Jeremy softly excuses himself, not that anyone really pays attention.

He wanders around, looking for a bathroom so he can collect himself. Everyone is so wonderful, and Jeremy loves them with all his heart, but they can be...a lot.

Jeremy doesn’t find a bathroom, but there is a guest room that he deems plain enough for him to reset his brain and reverse his sensory overload. He takes a few deep breaths and slowly catalogs everything in the room.

The quilt he’s sitting on is white with blue roses and green leaves. The pillowcases match. There’s five of those useless decorative pillows. The headboard has a swirling design on the edges and the dark wood complements the light bedding. To the right of the bed is a nightstand and a lamp. The walls are the same blue as the roses. There is a window across the bed, looking out into the backyard. He can see the neighbor’s children running around in the snow, laughing at themselves when they fall face first into the ground.

“Is the movie over?”

Jeremy jumps at the sudden noise and wills his heart to calm the fuck down. It’s only Rich. It’s only Rich. He’s holding a half-empty bottle of...something.

“Almost.”

“Not a fan of excellent cinema?”

He smiles and shrugs vaguely. Rich takes a sip from the bottle and leans on the doorframe. His eyes narrow, confused but not harsh, like he’s trying to solve a math problem.

“Why are you here?”

He bites the inside of his cheeks. “Because it’s my dad’s last name.”

Rich tries to be unamused. He fails. His smile is wide and sweet, all slightly crooked teeth and dimples on the sides. Jeremy catalogs this.

Jeremy coughs into his fist. “I just, uh, they’re—it got loud. And I couldn’t really…” His hands wave around his head, like it’s an answer.

Rich nods like he understands because...he does.

“Yeah. I think she fucked up everything,” Rich points to his head, “when she left.” He leans his head back and drinks. Some of it dribbles out the corners of his mouth.

“Who?”

“My Squip.”

Something inside Jeremy desperately needs to know who Rich’s Squip looked like. Obviously it was a woman, so that cuts all possibilities in half but also that’s not particularly helpful. Whatever. It doesn’t matter. He’s not gonna ask because that’s super invasive and weird. He pushes the question back into his brain.

“Oh,” he says instead.

The bed shifts as Rich plops next to him, bouncing on the mattress as he settles. It’s a little jarring.

Fading red streak in his hair. Old scar on his forehead. New scar on his shoulder. Stain on his jeans. Slightly crooked teeth. Dimples on his cheeks.

“I think mine—it—he—the Squip messed things up for me too.”

There’s a heavy silence between them. The questions floating in both their minds: _What’s it like for you? How can you sleep? What do you tell your dad? You look like shit most days, are you okay?_ How can they ask? How could they answer? _Terrible. I can’t. Nothing. Absolutely not._

“After he left,” Jeremy starts, because if there’s one change in himself that’s actually positive, it’s that he’s bolder, more daring in the world of social interaction (though he doesn’t actually look at Rich), “everything became too much. I’ve had sensory issues before, but I could handle it. Now it’s like there’s a million different TVs on and I feel like I’m supposed to be watching all of them at once. Like I’m drowning in information.”

He sneaks a glance at Rich, who looks more serious than he has ever seen him before. Jeremy takes a deep breath and continues, avoiding eye contact again.

“I have to—sometimes I have to remind myself that this is real, you know? To stop myself from dissociating or thinking this is—like the world is a stimulation made my evil computer-robots trying to suck the life from out of my brain.” _Wow_ , that sounds super crazy when he says it outloud. “I’m real and you’re real and this room is real. And I’m fine. Mostly. I started—” No. Rich doesn’t need to know about _that,_ so he goes in a different direction. “I also panic when I see Mountain Dew, but that’s the free space on this trauma bingo.”

Rich laughs mildly. Not his normal laugh that fills an entire room, not the laugh that’s contagious and has all their friends in stitches for basically no reason. But it’s a laugh, and Jeremy counts it as some sort of victory.

“How is it for you?” He internally cringes at the awkward phrasing.

Rich rolls the bottle in his hands for a long time. It’s vodka, Jeremy realizes. Mostly empty. It sloshes around in the bottle, the noise making him a little sick. He’s about to apologize, tell Rich if he’s not ready to—

“It’s…” he lets out a tired sigh, “like, I can’t even _function_ anymore.” He runs a hand through his hair, taking a few strands with him. “I have all these fucking post-it notes all over my room, reminding me to brush my teeth and take a shower and do my homework but I can’t do my homework.” The grip on the bottle tightens. “I can’t do my homework. I have no fucking idea how to do math, Jeremy. I didn’t need to. _She_ told me all the answers. _She_ told me everything I had to do; I didn’t need to think for myself.”

He should say something, offer advice, a simple ‘that’s rough buddy’, literally anything.

“Oh,” is all he can manage.

Rich throws the vodka back and starts chugging, finishing the rest of the bottle. He looks down at it, like he forgot what exactly he was drinking and shoves the empty bottle into Jeremy’s chest.

“Don’t let me drink anything else for the rest of the night.”

“Uh, yeah, I can do that.” Jeremy pauses, unsure if he should ask. “I thought you...because isn’t your dad—” He stops himself. This really isn’t any of his business.

“He is.”

“Oh.”

“I don’t,” he looks at the bottle, “I don’t want to be like him. He’s fucking _trash_ .” Rich clenches and unclenches his fists, trying to keep his cool. “But sometimes I hear her. And I don’t know if it’s even real, but _Jesus fuck,_ Jeremy, it—it—it—” He takes a few deep breaths. “Drinking makes me feel safe. Makes me feel like even if _she_ comes back, I have some line of defense. And there’s no more Mountain Dew Red, so…this is the best option.”

“I have more.” Rich squints at him. Confused, not harsh. “Michael gave me the rest of the case after…” Jeremy shifts his gaze to a landscape painting on the wall.

“After the play?”

“No.” He thinks about stopping there, letting Rich fill in the blanks, but that seems unfair somehow. “Um, I thought I heard it when I was over at his house. Michael’s house. Maybe I really did hear it.” He licks his lips but stops when there’s a faint tingle at the base of his spine. “It was just calling out my name, but I shut down and I wouldn’t—I couldn’t—speak until the next morning.” His hands shake. “Michael had to pick me up off the floor and pour it into my mouth. Now I have a some every night, just to make sure it stays... _dead_.”

The silence between them is heavy but not suffocating. It feels almost...nice. Jeremy can tell Michael everything, but that doesn’t mean he understands. He talks to Christine about it sometimes, maybe even Jenna if she’s feeling open. But Rich is the only one who had it for a more than a few hours. The only one with scars that stretch across the length of his spine. The only one who really gets it.

Rich puts his hand over Jeremy’s, squeezing gently. And Jeremy just...loses it, violent sobs shaking through his body. Strong arms pull him in and he gets Rich’s shirt all gross, covering a shoulder in tears and spit and maybe a little bit of snot. Rich doesn’t seem to mind, though. There’s a few stuttering ‘I’m sorry’s muffled by cotton. Rich lisps out a ‘no worries’ after every apology.

They stay like this for a while, holding on to each other like it will somehow fix everything wrong with them. Maybe it will.

“You okay?” Rich asks after what feels like an eternity.

Jeremy nods and removes himself from Rich’s shoulder. He scrubs his face with the sleeves of his cardigan and takes a deep breath. The world still lays heavy on his chest, but it’s a little lighter now.

The two are silent, staring at the setting sun between the slits of the blinds. It’s beautiful; streaks of red and blue and yellow and pink painted across the sky. Smoke rises from a neighbor’s chimney, getting swept away in the wind. The trees are covered in a plush blanket of snow that glitters in the light.

The world doesn’t care about the plights of high school juniors; it will keep going on with or without them. Jeremy finds this oddly comforting. Everything in their lives is fucked up and terrifying, but at the very least there’s a beautiful world outside the terror bubble surrounding the eight of them. The world is more than just evil Japanese supercomputers and Mountain Dew and nightmares.

“I think...I need a few minutes to, uh, reset. B-But I’ll be down in a minute.”

Rich gives him a look, impossible to read, but he goes, shutting the door softly behind him. Okay.

 _Okay_.

White quilt with blue roses and green leaves. Matching pillowcases. Five decorative pillows. A headboard made of some dark wood. A nightstand and a lamp. Blue walls, just like the roses. A window. The children aren’t outside anymore.

Jeremy takes another deep breath.

“This is real,” he says aloud to himself. “And I’m fine.”

He opens the door and heads downstairs.


	2. Michael and Christine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s super fucking obvious I’ve never smoked weed and don’t understand anything about dab pens please don't roast me.

By the time Space Jam ended, Michael was feeling a little anxious. It was mostly his normal anxious, but mixed in was just a splash of ‘where the fuck is Jeremy?’ and a generous amount of ‘what am I doing at Brooke Lohst’s house? I don’t belong with these people.’

And everyone is nice to him, sure, but they aren’t his  _ friends _ . The history they share is messy at best. Bullying him and calling him ‘antisocial headphones kid’ because they couldn’t remember his actual name. Not exactly a great starting point. Chloe was in APUSH with him sophomore year and she didn’t do too well, so maybe they’re all just bad at history.

So Michael sits back and watches. Chloe teases Brooke and Jake for liking the movie so much while Jenna and Christine talk about something completely different; he can’t really hear. He’s not their friends (well, maybe Christine’s, but barely) so he reaches for his phone in his pocket and...oh. He forgot that was in there.

And it’s not...it’s not like his thing. Weed is not his thing, and he really hopes that nobody thinks it’s his thing. Because it’s not. Michael just gets anxious and needs a little bit to calm himself down. Normally his solution is to blast music through his headphones, but this is different than being in the hallways at school or in study hall.

His head feels light and he mumbles some excuse about needing fresh air before sneaking outside.

Michael finds a balcony on the second floor and pulls out his dab pen. Shit. Maybe weed is his thing if he carries this around him all the time. He inhales, already feeling better. Calmer.

Sometimes Jeremy goes on and on about how he wishes he could just not care like Michael. But he mistakes being calm for not caring. Michael cares, but his anxiety just isn’t as bad as Jeremy’s. Jeremy Heere is 140 pounds of pure anxiety so bad, Michael needs to order all his food for him when they go out. While Jeremy spends his time thinking about what everyone else thinks, Michael worries more about the future. About college and building a career and if Jeremy and him will still be friends into adulthood. 

And a little bit about Jeremy’s new friends and how he absolutely didn’t belong here, why did he come, this was a mistake, fuck— 

“What are you doing?”

Michael jumps and almost drops the pen two stories down. It’s Christine. (It’s just Christine.) That makes things a little better. He’s not comfortable with anyone else here, except Jeremy (things are still...weird between them, but still, they have history, a solid foundation). Chloe and Jake and all them are largely uncharted territory, but Christine is safe and familiar. They’ve had classes together and talked a few times, even before the Incident. They have some sort of base.

He holds out the pen, both as an answer and as an offer. She shakes her head and Michael shrugs, taking another hit.

“Why are you vaping?”

Michael purses his lips, about to correct her. He thinks it might be better to just answer the question. “Anxious.”

“Why?” she says again, cocking her head to the side.

Michael never liked 20 questions, but this is Christine and she’s not  _ them _ . Chloe and Brooke and Rich and Jake and Jenna. She has to understand. So he exhales, turning his head away from Christine so she doesn’t get smoke all in her face, and gestures vaguely behind her.

“The...party? Oh, shoot, Brooke said not to call it a party.” 

“The people inside the party.” He pauses. “The not-party.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.” She gives him a sympathetic look and moves closer, testing her limits. Maybe she feels weird about their relationship too.

It’s why he likes Christine. She gets it. She understands that building any structure takes time.

“I’m convinced they only let me come to these things because I’m Jeremy’s friend. I’m just sort of...here.” Michael shrugs again and takes another hit before putting the dab pen back in his pocket.

He’s not upset about it; it’s just a fact. These are Jeremy’s friends, not his. They bullied him (both of them, actually) all throughout middle school and high school and Michael has forgiven them, somehow, but nothing is completely settled. They’re trying to build new relationships on sand and that’s not nothing but it’s hard to make something that won’t collapse with any miniscule shift. Michael never liked building sandcastles anyway.

“But you’re the reason any of us are here. Alive. Unbrainwashed,” she says, confused.   
  
“Jeremy saved you guys.”   
  
“You brought the Mountain Dew Red.”

“Yeah, but—“   
  
Christine puts a hand on Michael’s shoulder and even in this sharp cold, she’s incredibly warm. “You’re as much a part of saving us as Jeremy.” She pauses and whispers to herself, “That was phrased weird.” To Michael, “We all know what you did and we all appreciate and love you for it. So, um, yeah.” She says, twisting a lock of her hair around her finger absentmindedly. “I don’t think I ever thanked you. So...thank you! For making me here. Alive. Unbrainwashed”

Her smile seems to brighten the world and like...Michael’s gay, he’s super gay, but her smile is more beautiful than the sun setting behind her. He doesn’t say anything, but...wow, he really gets it now. He understands why Jeremy was in love with Christine for five years. She’s warm and comfortable and she says all the things you need to hear, even if they aren’t said cleanly. Everything about her existence is gentle and genuine and calming and concrete.

“Plus,” Christine says, poking him in the chest, “Rich called you ‘bro’ the other day. You’re totally in. Plus  _ plus _ a cool guy like you has nothing to worry about.”

He laughs a little through his nose, thankful but uncertain. “Rich calls everyone ‘bro’.”

“Only the people he likes,” Christine corrects, smiling wide. It fades a few moments later, her eyebrows twitch in serious thought. “Everyone downstairs was concerned about you. Thought that maybe we scared you off or something.” She picks at the peeling paint on the railing. “I know it’s—like I felt that a few months ago. What you’re feeling. Just ‘Jeremy’s friend’. I was just ‘Jeremy’s girlfriend’. But everyone still talked to me after we broke up. Also Chloe isn’t gonna pretend to like someone she doesn’t like and she went shopping with me twice.” Her smile returns, not as bright but still comforting. “So...yeah. They like you. I’m sure.”

Michael smiles back and bumps his shoulder against Christine’s. “Thanks. It means a lot.”

The sun has almost completely dipped behind the horizon, a sliver peeking out behind dunes of snow. In the neighbor’s yard, a snowman sits, lumpy and lopsided but stable on the flat blanket of snow. The good thing about making something out of snow is that you can smooth out the lumps over time. It’s more difficult to make it less lopsided; that takes more effort and time and the problem might never be completely fixed. But it’s still a good snowman regardless.

“Thanks,” He says again, and goes back inside, ready to start building.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you see any grammar or spelling mistakes please let me know!
> 
> Taking a small break because the holidays are absolutely consuming me.

**Author's Note:**

> Me? Projecting both a modified version of my trauma and my coping skills onto Jeremy Heere? It's more likely than you think.
> 
> Also I'm limiting myself to one (1) Heere/here joke per fic. Any more than that would be too much power for one man.
> 
> If you see any grammar or spelling mistakes please let me know!


End file.
